


Now I Stand Here Waiting

by Boethiah



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Character Study, Depression, Fantasizing, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Masturbation, Inspired by Music, Oedipal Issues, One Shot, Psychosexual Disgust, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Underage Masturbation, Violent Thoughts, none of the sexual elements here are presented for titillation, oh come on it's an eva fic, this is very emo but it's a shinji fic so duh, you know this stuff already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-11 01:11:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11138253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boethiah/pseuds/Boethiah
Summary: Tell me, how does it feelWhen your heart grows cold?





	1. Chapter 1

It’s always brightest after it rains in Tokyo-3. The light still stings his eyes - even sunlight feels like a knife cutting clean through his eye socket.

Shinji Ikari clutches the side of his arm. A couple walks by, a giggling boy and girl, both hand-in-hand and he tries not to silently scoff at them. Most people think of limbs as sturdy, stable things - amazing how _little_ it would take for someone to show them otherwise. How bones can crack like brittle twigs and flesh can _sizzle_ with the choking stench of dried blood and smoke…

He shuts his eyes and tries to remember what the two looked like. Out here, faces blur in a vague, nondescript mass. Legs walk in stilted, jerking motions. Feet press heavily against warm, cracked cement before coming to a stop.

The player clicks at his side. He’s been listening to the same song for so long that he’s forgotten what anything else sounds like. There’s something _nauseating_ about the outside world that people _won’t admit_ but _feel_ boiling in their blood and he _knew_ why they didn’t.

 _Because they were scared to. Because_ he _was scared to._

* * *

Train stations are always unpleasant places to be, but he doesn’t have enough energy left in him to simply walk. He blares the music louder another octave or two to stomach the ride. The best trance music leaves you in a fugue, a state between waking and dreaming...and away from any harsh, unpleasant thoughts.

Shinji’s been listening to the song at full volume for over half an hour now. It’s kept him from thinking of his father or the Angels or that damned machine - but it can’t stop him from thinking of _her_.

He thought she was _different_. He thought she’d cared. For a little while, when she said he had a home, he’d _believed_ her. But she’d treated him just like his father...just like _everyone_ did, really. And he didn’t _get it_ , he’d done _everything_ she’d wanted - everything _they’d all_ wanted from him and they still...and she _still_ …

“I’m the only reason you’re still sitting here right now,” Shinji whispers to the geriatric sitting next to him. He doesn’t hear him. Shinji knows he can’t hear him through the clacking of train-tracks. If he could, then he might’ve responded, and Shinji doesn’t _know_ how to deal with responses.

It’s really amazing how _no-one_ shows him _any_ sort of _gratitude_ for -

Shinji clicks at the volume adjuster like it’s a machine-gun trigger.

* * *

He isn’t even paying attention to the movie. It’s another one of those Second Impact films he’s seen a dozen times, the same plot, just with a cast he’d never seen before. After the first fifteen minutes of watching them “act,” he’d wished it had stayed that way.

Later he was going to go look up the reviews, and they were going to say things like “It’s heart-wrenching” or “A powerful movie.” He guessed it was if you’d _lived_ through the thing, but why would _he_ care? It’s all just _schlock_ to him. If he could write well, he’d make a review and voice what _a lot_ of people were –

Were there…were there two people _making out_ in front of him? Did anyone have _any sort of decency_ nowadays?

Shinji wonders what lips feel like locked against lips. He’d only felt bodies pressed against him in fleeting moments – classmates pushing in a line, strangers packed tightly together on a train. What did it feel like to be held, to be caressed – to touch and be touched, and to have every touch _wanted_?

Second Impact’s sharp population decrease had produced no shortage of sex and sexually-charged material for the average voracious (if lethargic) fourteen-year old boy’s consumption. As a result, Shinji had grown with a _plethora_ of fantasies to choose from.

He had lain under sheets with his knees bucked and his hand sliding down his body, imagining himself in bed with the woman of the week. Who it was changed from time to time – most of the time it had been his classmates’ older sisters, or impossible women from TV or movies. But they were brief, dreamy moments of pleasure. Seeing it in real life felt like something different altogether, something frighteningly, viscerally adult.

Shinji’s pupils retract. They’re practically _fucking_ right now, her hand at his pants and reaching down. How could they stand such an undignified display? He should’ve taken her – she should’ve taken him in his… _her_ arms. Shinji closes his eyes and rubs his forehead.

He leaves the cinema with an indignant huff, the movie not even halfway through. He isn’t interested in a refund. 

* * *

The thoughts come back to him later that night as he rests his head on his satchel, the faint glow of a vending machine the only light in the cinema’s pitch-black lobby.

How Misato Katsuragi could fluctuate between childish and _frighteningly_ focused was anyone’s guess. He’d supposed that it’d be an enigma to him forever. Shinji feels his eyelids grow heavier as he rocks himself to sleep – he’d have to content himself with that.

Cold fingers reach into his satchel, rummaging through cloth and packaged goods before steadying upon the familiar sheen of a photograph. _This_ is the Misato he’d rather think about. Bright and carefree, with a grin and a vivacious, artificial sexuality – so far removed from the bundle of baggage the real Misato was.

Shinji remembered the first time he’d gotten the picture. How he’d dissected her, from the curve of her back to the plumpness of her breasts. Guilt welled up in his throat.

He imagines her long, long arms pinning his limp body against her chest. Soft, trembling lips wrap around a teat, suckling at her as she hums a lullaby. Her hand guides him between her legs as she hums a lullaby he can’t – he _can’t hear her_. A warm, white fluid oozes against his tongue, something like sweet spittle and the pressure is too much, he’s going to _-_

Something flashes before him in a split-second as he gives in. There’s a tree, and a man is standing in the distance and – and that doesn’t matter, he’s being cradled in _her_ arms and doesn’t know or care who she is. All he knows is that for a moment, he’s _finally safe_.

He’s suddenly cognizant of how _small_ he is – whimpering on a bench like a mangy dog, curled under a rooftop in the rain. His left hand tucks the photograph back inside his bag, while his right wipes something foul-smelling and sticky under the seats.

* * *

It’s funny how from this distance, the city seems so _small_.

He’s forgotten the warm Misato of his midnight fantasies; the harsh, biting _shrew_ she really is has reasserted itself in his mind. He isn’t wearing his music player, but the song still beats in his head – Shinji imagines the slurred, droning voice as his own, saying things he’s not brave enough to say.

“Tell me, Misato, how should I feel?” he says with a smirk, his eyes downcast.

Shinji feels like he could ask that of a _lot_ of people. Everyone always telling him what to do – not just Misato. His father, too. Thinking that he could just tell Shinji what to do after all this time, after _all he’d put him through_ and…and he _could_ , couldn’t he? All Shinji did – all he _ever_ did – was stand there. And take it.

He takes out his player; it’s the only thing that man’s ever given to him that’s meant anything. Fitting that it’s what he listens to whenever he feels the need to flee from it all, he thinks. But memories always seem to haunt him the worst when he’s trying to flee from their cold, clawed grasp.

Shinji glances down, below the clouds and past the cliff’s edge, and marvels at how little it would take to be free from them for good. A few steps, a few tense breaths…and then an almost ethereal weightlessness, like a feather drifting in a soft breeze. It’s not the fall that he’s afraid of. It isn’t even the landing.

He imagines his body lying on the ground below, cracked bone and wet flesh offered on the altar. He wonders if anyone would even bother to find him. His father wouldn’t. That Suzuhara kid wouldn’t – Shinji knows he’s still angry at him for what happened to his sister, and it wouldn’t surprise him if he’d _laugh_ at his funeral. And Misato?

For a few, precious days, he’d thought Misato would. But she only needed him to pilot that wretched thing, didn’t she? Then why did she – then _why_ –

The final chapter, the ultimate equalizer; he’d heard death described with all those sickening, poignant _euphemisms_. Why was death such a big deal to so many people, anyway? He’d always thought of it as an endless sleep, a final reprieve from the world’s cold cruelty – the _emergency exit_. A few inches more and he could close the door on all those dreadful memories – forever.

Then why couldn’t he do it?

Was he afraid? No, that couldn’t be it – he was more scared of life, of _people_ , than he was of death. He felt no fear looking over the edge, only a lack of will – a knowledge that he _couldn’t_ do it. It wasn’t a feeling, it was a simple fact, like how the sun rises every morning. He could wish for it as much as he wanted, but his body wouldn’t even _lean_ above the ledge.

Shinji slips the piece of plastic back into his satchel and sits on it, crossing his arms above his knees. Far above his head, the sun shines behind parting clouds.


	2. Explanation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My Explanation

Explanation of the events that transpired

Okay, so the bulk of this work is taken from Episode 4, which has some of the most iconic and worst understood scenes in the show. This story was themed around one central, pervading emotion; can you guess what it was?

My general philosophy is that while Asuka’s the cheerleader with straight As who has bulimia and a bad relationship with her parents, Shinji’s the quiet kid who ends up shooting up the school. Anyone who misses the sheer _volumes_ of veiled anger that color his interactions with people is missing out on most of the juicy bits of his character. Shinji’s got a lot of repressed rage, and for good reason; his life so far has _sucked_. He’s got a shit-ton of baggage from what happened to him and rather than exploding out (as Asuka does) he just bleeds it out.

I completely forgot that it was raining in the first half of the episode! I amended the first few sentences to reflect this. I think it’s important for Shinji to have sunlight glaring down at him. An understated facet which I’ve only seen one other person explore – go read _A Glass of Wine, Rebuilt_ – is the physical trauma Shinji undergoes throughout the series, which is usually neglected in favor of the emotional trauma that’s part of his backstory.

It is significant that the couple holding hands provokes these memories, but we’ll explore that aspect later. Shinji’s thoughts were intended to be read as him inflicting violence upon the two, yes. The earlier drafts were more explicit about this – Shinji is mentioned as “[wanting to place] his hands around that boy’s arm to twist it, bend it at unnatural angles.”

We all know by now that Shinji, like any other emo kid, uses music to escape his problems. The track he’s listening to, in case you missed all the obvious references (or just haven’t heard it), is New Order’s _Blue Monday_. We know that he likes XTC, so I thought maybe him liking Joy Division/New Order was probably not out of the question. I like to think he enjoys The Police and Depeche Mode’s more somber tracks too.

The train station scene was going to be a lot more explicit, but I decided to narrow it down to a vague discomfort. Note how the first person he thinks of while reflecting on bad memories is Gendo, the man who abandoned him on a train station. He’s trying his damnedest not to think about his father, so instead that segues directly into thinking about Misato.

As you know, Shinji’s last interaction with Misato didn’t…really go all that well. I can totally see him splitting Misato into what I term “Good Misato” and “Bad Misato” – it’s a common thing neurotics like Shinji do.

I bet Shinji lets his placid façade slip all the time when he thinks people won’t catch him. That old man didn’t do anything particularly nasty to him; Shinji was just having a bad day and wanted to take it out, but didn’t want to deal with the consequences. The machine-gun trigger part was an allusion to his training pre-Shamshel battle.

The cinema scene is one of those great moments that should be remembered as well as the later scene with the cliffs, or the whack-off part in End of Evangelion. I could tell that it was a pretty crappy film – I think Shinji knew that going in, and just wanted to not think about things. But that’s not as important as how he reacts to the couple kissing.

A lot of people brush his grunt of disgust off as mere revulsion at impropriety, but I think it runs deeper than that. Having had basically no-one to be close to him, Shinji feels resentment at people who do and that colors his reactions to them as much as prudishness does. As is usual for teenage boys, this doesn’t prevent him from imagining sex himself – it’s hypocritical, yes, but it’s hypocrisy borne out of wider insecurities. The swearing might seem an odd choice, but again – Shinji is all about _repressed rage_.

With a declining population as well as humans being humans, I can buy attitudes becoming more bent towards sex and sexuality post-Second Impact. And we _know_ Shinji enjoys rubbing one out as much as any boy his age does. I think Shinji makes a distinction between – and prefers – his idealized, glitzy version of sex to the horrible, adult _reality_ of what it is. Evangelion is a show that attaches a _lot_ of baggage to sex and sexuality.

In case you didn’t get this part; _yes, Shinji was jerking off to Misato’s picture_. The line about foul fluid could be interpreted as tears or snot but _come on_ , we know what it is, don’t we?

So first off, he jerked off to Misato’s picture because _come on_ , there’s _no way_ he didn’t. It’s not shown like it is with Asuka but it’s seriously just a matter of putting two and two together. But this goes beyond your average teenage boy’s sex fantasy – this is a _Shinji_ sex fantasy, and that means…Oedipal baggage!

Yes, it’s very deliberate that Shinji’s fantasies all describe Misato in maternalistic-sounding language. I think Shinji, like many people, uses sex as a substitute for emotional warmth. Shinji was deprived of his mother at a young age (like a lot of anime protagonists) and (unlike a lot of anime protagonists) that bleeds into his sexuality; he seeks maternal comfort in them. That last one’s a call-forward to post-Zeruel. I like to think Shinji has fleeting recollections of repressed childhood memories that he forgets soon after.

Then of course, there’s the post-orgasm masturbation guilt. Shinji’s enough of a self-hating mess and I doubt he has a particularly libertine attitude towards sex – more likely he feigns disgust with it in public but secretly explores it. It’s temporary, but the hangover hits him harder than his usual constant self-loathing does.

Like I said, Shinji’s splitting Misato into two people here – “Good Misato,” who he’s constructed from her (generous) physical attributes and his subconscious psychosexual needs, and “Bad Misato” – the Misato that really exists, the person he’s perceiving to be using him. Which of course, _she is_ , but not in a sexually charged manner. Listening to music because it “says what I feel but can’t say” is a classic emo teenager trope; in this case, it’s Shinji not having the stones to confront authority about his situation and eke out a path for himself.

Shinji’s relationship with his father is the most common theme that pops up in these fan-fictions, and while obviously critical it isn’t the _only_ thing that defines him. I think that given the time period this covers, his more immediate thoughts would be towards Misato rather than his father. Really, I tried to focus less on the usual suspects (his mother’s death, his father’s abandonment) in this fan-fiction because that’s a road that’s been trod multiple times – while I _did_ include them, they play themselves out in subtler ways.

I read somewhere that Anno intended Shinji to be thinking about suicide in the cliffs scene. Anno described it as him finding that he has the lack of will to even kill himself – I reflected this as Shinji _knowing_ , not feeling, that he can’t jump. Some of the most graphic imagery is still reserved for this section, as is a lot of his subconscious anger projecting itself; as we know, the real Touji was legitimately worried for him.

In case you didn’t get it, the emotion I themed this story around without namedropping is _contempt_. “Shinji Ikari feels contempt for the people around him” is pretty much this fan-fiction in much less words.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to disagree!!

**Author's Note:**

> This is the entire fan-fiction; if this gets popular enough, I'll upload my explanation. This is my interpretation of what Shinji's like, hope I nailed him. Getting a character this complex is _hard work._
> 
> Oh and re: Sick Lullaby, following recent developments in politics and my personal life I don't feel happy enough to write things about cute teenage witches.


End file.
